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While wary eyes focus on a waterway at Chicago for the Asian carp's invasion of the Great Lakes, Ontario thinks the unwanted intruder will arrive by bridge.

In trucks.

The fish that could ruin the $200-million-a-year commercial fishery in the lakes and kill sport fishing because of its voracious appetite is on the doorstep of the Great Lakes basin, having conquered the Mississippi system and southern states.

All that separates the invader from Lake Michigan is an electric barrier and a short stretch of the Calumet River, which a team of experts combed this month looking for live fish but came up empty-handed.

"We certainly support our U.S., agency partners who are trying to stop the spread of Asian carp," John Cooper, a spokesperson for Ontario's Natural Resources Ministry told QMI Agency Thursday.

"But from Ontario's perspective, our priority is the live Asian carp coming across the border, being imported for food fish purposes," he said. "That's the most likely way."

Cooper noted once the carp enter Lake Michigan they have a long swim to reach Ontario waters.

"The immediate threat is live fish coming across the border in trucks," he said. And with help from the Canadian Border Services Agency, progress is being made.

It's against the law in Ontario to possess or sell live Asian carp and two convictions were registered this year, one drawing a $20,000 fine, the other, a repeat offender, $50,000. A third case is before the courts with the trial next year.

All three busts were made at the Blue Water Bridge crossing near Sarnia, Ont.

A Toronto fish market was fined $4,500 in 2009 for having live Asian carp.

"It's a popular food fish in many parts of the world," Cooper said of the carp, which can grow to more than a metre in length and have been brought in from southern states.

The carp, the Asian, big-head, grass and silver varieties, consume vast amounts of plankton so their flesh is free of toxins they would have if they were bottom feeders or ate smaller fish.

In the U.S. - where the silver carp, which leap into the air when startled, creating danger for boaters - interstate movement of the fish has been banned, Cooper said. That helps Ontario authorities in their bid to block the asphalt invasion route.

The Natural Resources Ministry has also developed a spill response plan to deal with the possibility of a truck tipping over and dumping live carp into a waterway such as the Thames River.

"We respond in trying to corral the fish" instead of using poison which would threaten other species, he said. The plan focuses on deploying nets and other devices.

Cooper said no Asian carp have been found in Ontario's inland waters, but a couple were reported in the Great Lakes. A big-head carp was caught off Point Pelee in 2000 and a grass carp in Lake Huron near Sarnia in 2007.

Meanwhile, an electric fish barrier, built for $9 million at Chicago, consumes $20,000 worth of electricity every day. Illinois officials have refused to close the Chicago ship and sanitary canal which links the Mississippi and Great Lakes basins arguing to do so would hurt commerce.